Brian Rock, aka “Rocket,” came to New York City from the island of Dominica in the mid-1970s as the bassist and lead singer in a reggae band. He was only 16 years old.

The temperature in Dominica rarely deviates from the ‘70s and ‘80s year round. So when that first New York winter hit, Rock said he cried and wanted to go back home.

“From a small island – we have 70,000 people in Dominica – and you move into the biggest city in the world, it was a shock,” he said. “But I knew I was here for music. Music always made me happy.”

Four decades later, Rock heads up a band called Gizzae that has been serving most of Chicago’s reggae needs since 1992.

Gizzae performs at the Foellinger Freimann Botanical Conservatory on August 4 as part of the conservatory’s Botanical Roots series.

Reggae is the music of Jamaica, but “gizzae” is not a Jamaican Creole term. Gizzae means “time” in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, Rock said.

“Two guys in the band are from Ethiopia,” he said. “(So Gizzae) is like a metronome. We are music. We are time.

“We also like to be on time,” Rock said, laughing. “I know reggae musicians have a bad rep, I think.”

Rock grew up listening to the music of the Caribbean, of course, but it wasn’t calypso or reggae that impelled him to become a musician. It was the documentary film, “Woodstock.”

“When that movie came out – Jimi Hendrix, Santana, big stars – you soon started to hear a lot of rock music on the radio,” he said. “So I started playing rock music on the islands. That was what started the ball rolling for me personally. That movie changed by life.”

The origin of Rock’s nickname, Rocky, isn’t hard to deduce. Rock said everyone who grows up in Dominica gets a nickname and that becomes the name they’re known by.

“Whenever anybody called me Brian,” he said, “I thought they were teasing me.”

Reggae was what brought Rock to New York City, but it wasn’t the only music that he played in New York City.

One day, he was asked to visit a studio where a singer-songwriter was working on an album.

The singer-songwriter, a stranger to Rock, was unhappy with a bass line that had been laid down for one of his songs and wanted to see if Rock could play something better.

Rock could and did.

A year later, Rock was watching TV and saw the singer-songwriter he’d helped out.

It was Bruce Springsteen.

The song Rock had played on was “Cover Me,” from the album “Born in the U.S.A.”

“I didn’t know who Bruce Springsteen was,” he said, laughing. “It might have been a good thing because I wasn’t intimidated.”

Rock’s collaboration with Springsteen lead to later session work on “Too Much Blood,” a song from the Rolling Stones album, “Undercover.”

Rock eventually tired of New York City and looked for other cities in which to live and work.

He tried Miami and Los Angeles, but they weren’t for him.

Ultimately, Rock settled on Chicago.

“Chicago’s music scene is so cool,” he said. “There’s so much live music and you can actually survive as a musician.”

Gizzae rose from the ashes of one of Ziggy Marley’s former backing bands, Rock said.

The band needed a bass player and Rock, who had just arrived in Chicago, said he “was only too happy to do it.”

Rock inherited vocal duties when Gizzae’s original vocalist was late for a rehearsal and Rock had to step in.

“I was singing and playing,” he said. “And when the singer came and he saw me doing that, he was like, ‘Oh man…’”

“He just quit after that,” Rock said, laughing.

The eventual success of Gizzae helped Rock in ways he couldn’t have predicted when he joined the band.

When Rock’s wife died of cancer, he became a single parent to his young sons. His performance schedule allowed him to be home during the day with his boys. Other relatives were able to take over at night.

Now those boys, Isaiah and Mosiah, are grown and are accomplished musicians in their own right.

Mosiah works as a music producer and engineer, Rock said, and Isaiah recently graduated from college with a teaching degree.

For the time being, however, Isaiah is eschewing the classroom for the stage.

He is on tour with Gizzae this summer.

“He told me, ‘I am going to take a year off and be a musician before I get a real job,’” Rock said.

With his sons out and on their own and Gizzae’s Windy City legacy assured, Rock has begun to fulfill his last big dream.

He is building a club and recording studio in Dominica where he hopes to teach young citizens the ins, outs, ups and downs of the music business.

“I have been here 42 years now,” he said. “I decided it was time to move back. I want to work with kids and show them how it’s done. How to entertain.

“I have spent most of my life on stage,” Rock said. “All I want to do now is to give back. That’s what life is about. You get and then you give back.”